EXCLUSIVE: CBS Television Studios has pre-emptively bought the rights to Edgar-winning author Meg Gardiner’s forthcoming novel UNSUB, ahead of an auction, to adapt for television. The novel, the first in a series, will be published June 27 by Dutton/Penguin Random House. It will be developed as a TV series by Carl Beverly and Sarah Timberman, who’ll be executive producers through their studio-based Timberman-Beverly Productions banner, along with The Story Factor’s Shane Salerno. The author, who who has spent years researching celebrated unsub cases, will also serve as a producer. They will begin talking to writers and showrunners quickly.

The thriller follows a female detective on the trail of an infamous serial killer – inspired by the still-unsolved Zodiac case – when he breaks his silence and begins killing again. The detective, who grew up watching her father destroy himself and his family chasing the killer, now finds herself facing the same monster. Her work brings her to the attention of the FBI’s elite Behavioral Analysis Unit, where she goes to work hunting other UNSUBs (UNknown SUBjects, a term used for suspects in a criminal investigation) while being tormented by the killer her father never caught.

Timberman and Beverly are executive producers of CBS’ Elementary and previously exec produced Justified, Masters of Sex and Unforgettable. The duo is post on the CBS/CBS Studios Navy SEALs drama pilot with David Boreanaz.

I am very glad to see this book made into a series. I hope they do as great a job as Sundance is doing with Joe Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard series. With the release coming up in the not to distant future, will there be a more intensive book tour associated with it? I’m very sorry to have missed your appearance in West Palm Beach.